We heard wheels, barely squeaking across tile floors, rolling out of the master bedroom toward the front door. A heavy door opened and then closed. I wanted to pull the shades wide open and see for myself, and I didn’t dare.
Revisiting My Sad and Trivial Night with Rock Hudson
In a final act of staking my claim, I asked the damp, drunk and spent star to scribble “All my best, Rock Hudson” on a piece of notebook paper before his hasty exit down the duplex stairs and out to the dingy street below.
The Night Don Lemon Hugged Me
Don Lemon, who remembered our first visit and never mentioned the circumstances, who knew this interview meant growth for me, a sort of redemption perhaps, and who even knew a little about overcoming shame himself, reached out in a simple gesture of support.
The Truth is Bad Enough: What Became of the Happy Hustler?
Kearns’ story includes a bizarre intersection between us that I found so revelatory and disturbing that I had to actually put the book down for several days while I reexamined an entire section of my life.
I am the man my father built.
“Never worry about making a fool of yourself,” he would say, “if it means taking a risk, Mark.” He would recognize my adolescent need to simply fit in with everyone else and he would deny me of it, locking his eyes onto mine. “You gotta take the risk.”
My sad and trivial night with Rock Hudson
(This essay appears in my collection of essays, My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor, available now at online outlets or your local bookstore.) Over and over, footage of Rock Hudson standing next to Doris Day was playing on television, and he looked...
My Fabulous Disease: The Top Ten Postings of Year One
"The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last." -- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest How was this judged, exactly? I was afraid you might ask. Not on the number of hits or any formal voting procedure. I relied purely on feedback received through the year...
The Price is Right, 30 years after coming on down
Within a few years of Coming On Down, there would be enormous differences between that video boy and myself, shaped by life events that would throw a wet blanket on my aw shucks optimism. I’ve tried to recover from them, to regain the hopeful, expectant glimmer found in the eyes of the kid from “The Price is Right,” with mixed success.
Dueling Videos: Oprah in 1987 and AIDS activism in 2010
In 1987, I was a 26 year old living in Los Angeles and trying to face the horror of having tested positive with HIV. Television blasted daily reports of the death toll, the suicides of people with HIV, and even the deterioration and death of Rock Hudson. But nothing...
Secrets of the Masturbatory Male
May is National Masturbation Month " Hurry, folks! Only a few days left to celebrate! " and I'll admit to feeling smug, because I have more experience with masturbatory gay men than anyone else I know. During my years in Los Angeles in the 1980's, I owned (and oh yes,...
